Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan plans to invite the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, along with other presidents of the countries in the world, to the events officially organized for the “100th anniversary of the Dardanelles military operations”. Prior to it, the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had invited the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Armenia to attend the April 24 events. Human rights activist Avetik Ishkhanayan said to Aravot.am regarding the controversial invitation, “Because, initially it was clear that Erdoğan would not come, it was a wrong decision.” According to the human rights activist, it was followed by the statement during the press conference of Erdoğan and Aliyev to invite the resident of Armenia to the “Victory” events of April 24. “In fact, it was a mockery to our tragedy. I think this should not be followed by a response from the President of Armenia to Erdoğan. However, to the question of the journalist about how he treats Erdoğan’s invitation, the president could have been refrained from the answer, just saying that he had not read the invitation. This invitation was followed by the response of the president of the country to Erdoğan. I do not want to talk about it, but, after all, when our president addresses with the phrase “Your Excellency”, it is double offensive to our nation and our state,” said Avetik Ishkhayan. To our question of how to address and whether such manner of salutation is not driven by the protocol, the human rights activist replied, “He could have addressed as “Mr. President.””
Ruzan MINASYAN
